And He who rests upon a naked Belief and will not be baptized when he may expects in vain that God will reckon him among his Children or admit him to any part of his Inheritance after having so peremptorily declared that such a one is none of his nor in any Condition of entring into his Kingdom And so in general If to acknowledging the truth of the Scriptures and confessing the Sufferings the Nature the Exaltation of Christ In a word If to the most Orthodox Opinions that ever were or can be we are commanded by the Word of God to add the reverent Observation of Divine Ordinances devout Prayer frequent receivings of the Sacrament and all manner of Vertue and Innocency of Life He who neglects These and puts Confidence in his Understanding or Owning the Principles of Religion builds upon a sandy and deceitful bottom His hope is that of Hypocrites and will at last lose both it self and Him that cherishes it And the Reason of these things is very obvious For the Redemption of the World by Christ is an arbitrary Act in God an Act of Free Mercy As such it is what no Collections of Natural Light or Moral Justice can give us any Apprehension at all of Consequently we can enter no farther into the grounds and manner of it than He who did it of his own accord thinks fit to let us into Consequently again we are bound to take the Manifestations of it entire Not to parcel them out as we see convenient and so make One Clause of this Indenture repugnant to and destructive of Another No reasonings of our own are of any weight in this Case any further than they are justified by Revelation by the natural Sense of some Text of Scripture and by the general design of the Christian Dispensation Now the very same Spirit which says * Ephes II. 8. We are saved by Grace through Faith hath informed us by the Ministry of the self-same Pen that †Galat. V. 6. in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Vncircumcision but faith which worketh by Love He hath commanded us to ‖ Heb. XII 14. follow peace with all men and holiness as things without which no man shall see the Lord. He hath drawn a black Catalogue of the Works of the Flesh and most solemnly assured us that they who are guilty of * Galat. V. 19 20 21. Adultery Fornication Vncleanness Lasciviousness Idolatry Witchcraft Hatred Variance Emulations Wrath Strife Seditions Heresies Envyings Murders Drunkenness Revellings and such like shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Is it not now as clear as the Sun that the Man who trusts to any Faith except such a Faith as worketh by Love leans upon a broken Reed Hath any man reason to think his Confessing Christ will save him who takes no care of either Peace or Holiness and allows himself in those Abominations just now mentioned Can he be called a Believer who dishonours his Profession by a scandalous Life or esteemed a Son of God who cannot see his face nor inherit his Kingdom It were most absurd to think most blasphemous to say so The receiving Christ is much another thing than these men make it I have already said It is not One simple Act of the Will or the Understanding but a large and a permanent thing an embracing his Doctrines in their just extent and submitting to all the Consequences of them in our Conversations 'T is to preserve a Harmony and punctual Agreement between the several parts of them that Faith and Virtue Promises and Precepts may go hand in hand and not be set in array to sight against and destroy each other And thus it must needs be For He that is otherwise perswaded acts contrary to this Rule builds without a Foundation he forms a New Gospel of his own and does not Believe but Presume In short God cannot away with these partial Proceedings these consultings with Flesh and Blood He will not have his own Institution the noblest and most compleat that ever was to be mangled and defaced And those very Jews who shut Christ out and would not receive him at all are not more wicked and inexcusable than the pretended Christians who receive him by halves and under the Cover of this Profession affront and deform and dishonour him and his Gospel Far be it from us to imagine that God will so far prostitute his mercies as to admit such wretches to the incomparable Advantage mentioned in my Text They may usurp a Title that is not theirs but the Obedient and Virtuous Believers the Pious and the Respectful Receivers of Christ These alone are the Persons who receive him as Christ and to them only he gives power to become the Sons of God Which is the Benesit mentioned in the Words and the Second Head of my Discourse upon them II. Those who have Criticized nicely upon this Passage make great Remarks upon the Evangelist's cautious manner of expressing himself in it They tell us It would have been less proper to have said that Christ made us become the Sons of God because this would have seemed an Act of Omnipotence and Necessity such as might have been interpreted in prejudice to the Freedom of our Will and that part which we our selves contribute to our own Regeneration Nor had it been equally prudent to say that he gave us power to make our selves the Sons of God because this had exalted our Faculties as much too high and deprest the Bounty of God and the Honour he hath done us as if any Performances of Ours could deserve or procure this Sonship But by saying he gave us power to become the Sons of God both these Inconveniences they think are saved The Mercy is still represented in it's due proportion in that this Honourable Relation is a Grace and our Advances toward it not a Meritorious Cause but a Qualification only And the Liberty of our Actions is still implyed in that he gave us only a power of obtaining what yet we might not obtain if we refused or neglected to exert that power Without being so Curious we may content our selves with that Sense of the word which our Marginal Reading suggests and by power understand the Privilege of becoming the Sons of God and even thus it affords us these two Considerations The Excellence and Greatness of the Benefit and Then the Free Bestowing it upon us 1. The Excellence and Greatness of the Benefit is abundantly declared in the very Title it self insomuch that St. John thought he had reason to cry out with some Astonishment when he reflected upon the Excellence of the Benefit and the unparallel'd Greatness of the Condescension * 1 John III. 1. Behold says he what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us that we should be called the Sons of God! And reason good he had most certainly For What could express What can confer greater Happiness By This we are allowed to promise
nor Leisure for nice Enquiries believe it as firmly and know it as assuredly as They. In like manner if there be certain Marks by which a Man born of the Spirit is evidently discerned and distinguished from another that is not so born We may from those Marks conclude that such a Man is Regenerate though we could not positively determine from whence this Principle of new Life took its rise Or if we knew as know we may that it could be owing to no other Cause but the Operations of the Holy Ghost we may then where such Marks appear be confident that the sanctifying Operations of the Holy Ghost have passed upon that Person though neither We who were Standers-by nor perhaps the Man himself was conscious of the Manner in which they were begun and carried on in his mind 2. Secondly A thing may be sufficiently perceivable One way which is not at all so in another For in all Objects of Knowledge there is something of Agreement and Proportion betwixt that Object and the Organ or Faculty that is contrived to apprehend it and upon this mutual Suitableness depends the Perception Thus it is with our Bodily Senses Each of them have parts fitted for receiving such Impressions as are proper to their purpose and the Qualities of Bodies are not applied to All these parts indifferently but severally to Each as Each is by Nature accommodated for the entertaining and making a Report of them to the Soul Thus we do not hear Colours nor see Perfumes nor smell Sounds and yet we are as fully satisfied that there are Sounds though we hear them only as if we saw and smelt them too To the same purpose it is that our Saviour argues in the Text. A Man sees not either any Shape or any Motion of the Wind it self All that he knows of this kind is only the motion of other Bodies agitated by it And yet he makes no difficulty to allow that it blows when he hears the sound of it because the Wind is not an Object proportioned to the Eye but the noise of it is to the Ear and therefore he receives the Testimony of that Sense which has a Competent Knowledge without troubling himself that this is not confirmed by the other Senses which are incapable of knowing any thing in the matter This is the force of the Allusion and that which by Parity of Reason arises from it is this That the Case is the same between the Intellectual Faculties and the Sensitive in general with that betwixt One Sense and Another And if we acknowledge a thing 's Reality when we hear the Sound but see no Shape of it because it is in Nature fitted to affect our Hearing but not our Sight There is the same Reason why we should assent to what our Understanding can apprehend though our Senses do not if it be of that kind which may give evidence to the mind and make it self understood though it cannot make it self seen or heard or felt by us Now a Spirit cannot work upon the outward Organs which can never be moved by any other Impressions than those of Body and Matter But if by help of Meditation by laying and comparing things together and considering the Consequences that naturally result from them we find that such a thing there is and such Footsteps there are of its Working we then may and ought to rest satisfied both of the Existence and the Operation of that Spirit Because we have the Evidence proper for the Condition of the thing such as it is capable of And the Intellectual Faculties of the Mind were intended by God for Helps and Instruments of attaining Knowledge no less than the Sensitive Organs of the Body Different Objects require different Perceptions and * 1 Cor. XII St. Paul hath observed it as an Ornament and Excellence rather than any Imperfection of Humane Nature that the several Parts have their several Offices allotted to them 3. Thirdly It is implyed by this Similitude that some things are capable of being known by the Essects which we cannot come to the Knowledge of any other way No man need go far for Proof of This. Intùs habes quod poscis We all are sure that we carry somewhat about us which we call a Soul Somewhat that thinks and deliberates and chuses that imagines and judges and remembers that fears and hopes and loves and hates and desires and refuses and grieves and rejoyces according to the different Apprehensions we receive of the Objects about which we are conversant This we know from our own Feeling and Experience And yet the Wisest of us all do not know the time when or the manner how this Soul was created and united to our Bodies nor a Thousand Difficulties more which might be started but yet stagger not any reasonable Man's assent because he is satisfied that these Effects must have a Cause adequate to them So likewise Our Saviour takes for granted that the noise and Sound was Proof sufficient that the Wind blows the shakings and rattlings of Boughs the raising Storms at Sea the tearing up Trees and rocking of Houses All convince us that the Air is in a Violent Agitation and yet we are not privy to the first beginnings of it We cannot tell what raised this mighty Ferment nor where it set out nor how far it intends nor what becomes of it when it ceases The Mariners are sure they are carried up to the Heaven and down again to the deep they see the Waves boil and foam like a Pot and feel their Vessel stagger like a drunken Man and they doubt not to conclude the Wind is the doer of it without ever disputing how it was able to disturb the face of the Deep or blow up the Waters into such Rage and Tumult And it is here urged to Nicodemus as a thing equally agreeable to Reason that men should submit to the Belief of a Second Birth if the Effects of that Birth appear though the Cause and Progress of it do not For instance St. John says He * 1 John III. 9 10. that doth Righteousness is born of God in this the Children of God are manifest and the Children of the Devil St. Paul acquaints us That * Gal. V. 6. VI. 15. the New Creature is Faith which worketh by Love †Gal. V. 22. that the Fruits of the Spirit are Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness and Temperance We are likewise told ‖ Phil. II. 13. That it is God who worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure Now from hence it follows most undeniably that let Moral Duties be never so much disparaged as mean and low and Legal Yet wheresoever we see any Man living Righteously where we find such a mixture of Faith and Charity and all that bright Constellation of Virtues mentioned just now we may and ought to pronounce that Man born of the Spirit For though the Tree be
of it imperceptible Then every Admonition from the Pulpit Every wholsome Law Every Advice from a Friend or a Parent Every good Book Every pious Example Every Motion and Intention to do well Every Conviction or Check of our own Conscience is a Blowing of this Wind a Call or Impulse from above And as often as any Man refuses to comply with these things so often he resists God and quenches his Spirit within himself Thirdly This shews us what Course men should take in order to get or to grow in Grace For since God works by and with his Ordinances our Business must be to use the Word and Sacraments and other means of Grace diligently to seek him there to put to the Shoulder and do Our Part resolutely and manfully and then not doubt his Assistance For upon these Terms we may depend upon it that He will forward and strengthen our good Intentions and since he creates all our Works in us that he will not fail to finish what he himself hath begun but will perform and continue it until the Day of Christ Jesus and in that day for his Sake and Merits will most assuredly crown Us and our Labours with Everlasting Glory Now to God the Father c. SERMON VIII THE Conditions and Privileges OF THE SECOND BIRTH St. John I. 12 13. As many as received him to them gave he power to become the Sons of God even to them that believe on his Name Which were born not of blood nor of the will of the Flesh nor of the will of Man but of God THE Evangelist after having in the beginning of the Chapter with great Exactness declared the Eternal Divinity of the Word of God and that This was the very Person testified of by the Baptist by which we are assured that this Word is no other than Jesus Christ the Son of God incarnate and having likewise spoken of his coming into the World he mentions here with what different success he did it Some that were more peculiarly obliged and most nearly related to him from whom an honourable Reception might most reasonably be expected gave him no Respect no Entertainment at all And this was the case of the perverse Jews whom God had laid his hand upon and singled out from the rest of Mankind for which reason they are called in the 11th Verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his proper Possession Christ's being refused there was an indignity like that of a Man's being driven or shut out of his Demesnes or Dwelling-house He came to his own and his own received him not The Loss however was not His but Theirs in denying Him they denied their own Happiness which was so great so evident that St. John thought no other expression of their Misery and Punishment was needful than only to describe the Privileges of those who behaved themselves more kindly and dutifully to him And this is done in the Text it self But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the Sons of God even to them that believe on his Name Which were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God For the right understanding and due Improvement whereof it will be expedient to consider the following Particulars First The Persons who alone are capable of Benefit by Christ's coming into the World They who receive him and believe on his Name Secondly The Nature of that Benefit which they obtain by so doing To them he gives power to become the Sons of God Thirdly The manner how this Sonship is conferred They are born not of blood nor of the will of the Flesh nor of the will of man but of God Fourthly The Extent of this Privilege he gives it to as many as receive and believe on him I. The First thing we are concerned to know upon this occasion is Who those Persons are to whom the Advantages of Christianity belong or What that Condition is which must qualify men for the Benefits of Christ's coming into the World This the Text hath expressed in those words who receive him and believe on his Name Now these are Terms explanatory of one another And as the Jews are therefore said not to have received him because they believed him not but rejected his Authority and Doctrine So Faith in what he hath revealed and Obedience to what he hath commanded are the Marks and Means of our receiving him And These consist not in a mere giving him the hearing and forbearing all publick and malicious Opposition to his word but in acknowledging the Truth and the Evidence of it depending upon his Promises expecting Salvation from that Name and no other and diligently endeavouring to perform all that is required on our part All that according to the Covenant of the Gospel can any way contribute to the rendring what he hath done and suffered effectual in our own particular Case That This must needs be the meaning of the Phrase is manifest to any man who will consider it closely For to receive Christ is to receive him as he is to submit to him in all those Capacities which God hath placed him over us in To receive him as our Prophet implies a firm Adherence to the whole of that Message which he hath brought us from Heaven to own his Divine Commission and be instructed by him To receive him as our Priest is to rely upon his most meritorious Sacrifice to confess the Sufficiency of his Atonement and to detest and forsake those Sins for which he hath made so perfect but withal so severe and painful an Expiation To receive him as our King is to own his Legislative Power to pay him strict Fidelity and Allegiance to bring all our Passions and Interests under Subjection to his Will and suffer no rebellious Appetites to raise wicked Seditions or tempt us to Unfaithfulness and Disloyalty against him The same is likewise necessarily consequent upon Believing For since the Object of all Faith is Credible Testimony and that of Religious Faith is Divine Revelation He who acts or entertains Persuasions contrary to or derogating from what God hath declared in Christ cannot properly be called a Believer on his Name If therefore God hath made something else necessary besides a bare Assent of the mind to the Truth of his Doctrines All That must needs come within the compass and be included under the notion of Faith If the Evangelist tell us in one place as he does here particularly that by believing men acquire the Privilege of becoming Sons of God and are born of God and yet our Saviour says positively in another as in the Third of this Gospel at the fifth Verse we find he does that Except a man be born again of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God it is very plain that this Belief must be such as is accompanied with and evidenced by a solemn entring into Covenant with God by Baptism
which are wont to rise from the Failings we feel or fancy in our selves Those that proceed from the expectation of such easy and peaceful Resentments of Mind as are imagined always to attend Piety and true Faith shall be considered God willing in another Discourse SERMON XIII THE CASE OF A Weak and Imperfect FAITH The Scruples about it consider'd St. Mark IX 24. Latter part Lord I believe help thou my Vnbelief MY design from these Words was to treat of a Weak and Imperfect Faith and in pursuance of that Design I have already assigned some Reasons for the weakness of Faith such and so general that all People will find themselves more or less concerned in them which was my First Head My Second proposed to satisfy the Scruples of many well-meaning Persons upon this occasion by shewing that those things which are frequently suspected as signs of their having no True Faith are really not so Now These being of Two sorts Some that proceed from a sight or an imagination of some Failings in Men's own selves and Others from the want of such easiness and peace of mind as are supposed constantly to attend true Piety and Faith The Former of these Kinds have been already consider'd particularly and the Latter come now under our Examination viz. Those Dissatisfactions which are apt to arise from the want of such easy and peaceful Resentments of Mind as true Faith and that Piety which God accepts are always supposed to produce Now of These I commonly meet with Two which seem most to deserve our Consideration And they are First Mens doubting of their particular Election and Salvation and Secondly The want of those inward Joys and that present constant peace of heart which Religion is so often said in Scripture to cheer our Spirits with and to recommend it self to us by First then I shall endeavour to satisfy you that for Men to doubt of their own particular Election and Salvation as that Phrase is commonly used is not any Argument that they want true Faith Nor indeed could it ever have been thought one if a sort of Vain Men had not led their Followers away with a strange deluding imagination that it was One necessary part and Character of a true Belief in Christ to perswade themselves of their own personal Election and that it was impossible they should ever miscarry So that not to rest asselves of their own Eternal Salvation is as they represent the matter a Distrust of Christ's mercy and of the Faithfulness of God to his promises since his gifts and his calling are without Repentance and whom he once loveth he loveth them unto the end Now when people are told in so very confident and peremptory terms that This is the Faith by which they must be saved and that to question their own Eternal Happiness is an undeniable proof that no such thing belongs to them And when at the same time upon examination of their own breasts and an humble sight of their many Failings and Infirmities they cannot rest in all that fulness of assurance but find some little Misgivings and Fears mixed with their Hopes We are not to wonder if they lye under sad anxieties and dissatisfactions so long as they believe themselves wanting in a Condition absolutely necessary to Salvation But Such is not this positive Assurance whatever is pretended nor in truth can it be as I hope to convince you in few words and by so doing most offectually to put and End to all those Scruples and Disquiets that are owing merely to this false presumption of its being so and that there can be no true Faith without it To believe that God out of a gracious design to save Mankind from Hell and everlasting Destruction sent his Son into the World to dye for them And that All such as Believe and obey the Gospel shall most certainly by His merits have their Obedience accepted and their Souls made eternally happy This indeed is a true and a necessary Belief And to question This is to distrust and dishonour God It is to contradict his word and to blaspheme his Truth But for You or Me in particular to believe that We are of this happy number This can never be required of us as a positive Duty Nor hath the Gospel enjoin'd it any farther than by the Testimony of our own Consciences and the word of God we find our selves within those General terms by which the Gospel promises Salvation to Mankind at large And you will I think agree that even in very Good men it cannot be expected This should amount to a positive assurance when you have considered the following Arguments As First It is not possible I conceive to reconcile such an absolute assurance with Fear And yet the Gospel plainly propounds this as a proper and very powerful motive to a Christian's Obedience For however that may have been run down as a Spirit contrary to the Genius of the New Covenant and the New Creature * Ps cxi 10. yet it is not plainer that the Old Testament places the * Phil. II. 12 13. beginning of Religious Wisdom in the Fear of the Lord than it is that the New attributes the very finishing and Excellence of it to the same Affection of mind and makes the very Mercies of God in Christ a foundation for it For so St. Paul advises the Corinthians 2 Ep. Chap. VII v. 1. Having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God Where it is plain he spoke not to Novices or to such as were to make their first feeble Essays by the help of this and then pass on to some Nobler Motive but he expects that they should complete their Duty and become perfect by That A Vertue so far from being inconsistent with Gospel-mercies that they are exhorted to fear for that reason because they had such gracious promises to depend upon The same Apostle commands his Philippians * Phil. II. 12 13. to work out their Salvation with fear and trembling that is in an awe of God's Justice constantly upon their minds a constant Dread of his Vengeance and from thence an Anxious Care to please him And yet all this is not a Spirit of Bondage for That could not stand with having received the Spirit of Adoption as these Philippians had who are accordingly encouraged to this diligence in the next verse from the consideration of God's Grace whereby he works in men both to will and to do of his good pleasure Nor may we say as some fondly do that the Love of God is cooled by such a principle since our Blessed Saviour himself hath recommended the highest Act of Love that men are capable of no less than suffering Martyrdom it self and laying down our lives for his sake from the same motive Thus he hath chosen to do to his beloved ones Luke XII 4. 5. I say unto you
which that Change is wrought in him 1. And first From that Expression The Wind bloweth where it listeth we may I think fairly infer the Freedom of God's Grace That he gives it liberally and of his own accord and that it is what no Merit of ours can oblige him to give In this Argument St. Paul hath laboured much * Rom. XI IV IX Chapters shewing that the very notion of Grace and the nature of it is contrary to that of Works and of Debt That Abraham the Father and the Pattern of the Faithful received the Call and Promise of God while he was yet among Idolaters and could have no Works to boast of That when Jews and Gentiles were both concluded under Sin God chose the Gentiles as he did Jacob before Esau freely while yet in the Womb Not that the One of these had any wrong done him or was used worse than he deserved but the Other found great Favour and was used better than he deserved And so the Chosen ought to be thankful and rejoyce but the Rejected could not complain nor had he any thing to accuse God of Thus it is also in the Work of Regeneration God gives us his preventing Graces freely He imparts the Light of his Gospel and it is a marvellous Blessing to be born and educated in those happy Regions which are enlightned with the pure Lustre of it When we believe this Gospel it 's his Grace that disposes our minds to do so When that Faith exerts it self in Works of Obedience This also is owing to the Assistances of his Grace When we improve to higher excellencies and approach nearer to the Perfections of a Spiritual and Divine Life This is again from the more abundant Communications of the same Grace 'T is true indeed Christ hath engaged to give an increase of Talents to Them who make a good Use of the * Matth. XXV 29. Talents they already have He hath assured us that our †Luke XI 13. Heavenly Father will not fail to grant the holy Spirit to them that ask him But still it is by the Aid and Influence of that very Spirit that we ask the Talents we have not and that we improve those we have So that This does but enhance God's Mercy and Bounty so much the more which first enables us to act and then rewards us for acting For that is in effect to crown and compleat His Own Work rather than Our Desert since what we do acquires a Title to his Promise and yet it is what we could not do if He did not impart to us the Power of doing it There is indeed another Sense of this Expression fixed upon by an * Cajetan Interpreter of Note which is that the Spirit of God blows upon mens minds in so gentle a manner as not to take away the listings of them but leaves the Will the same Exercise of its Freedom though in Conjunction with and under the Conduct of Grace But This if I mistake not though it be deducible from the Text seems rather to be implied in that other Passage Thou canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth By which I conceive we are led to a 2. Second Reflection concerning the manner of the Spirit 's working upon our minds which is That As we can give no account of the Rise the increase the quieting of the Wind where it began where it will stop or how long it will last So the Operations of the Spirit are many times very remote from our Understanding He may move us without our having any distinct Perception of the thing nor can we always say Then the impulse began thus long it continued and now it ceases to move me And this cannot seem very strange to any that shall consider by what steps he hath come off from a wicked Life or proceeded in a Good one For in all This he will find nothing of Violence or External Compulsion but such Motives all along as were entirely agreeable to his Faculties and the Methods by which he proceeds in other Cases For did not this Change begin with a Conviction of Sin and the Evil of it and consequent hereunto a Hatred and Detestation ground upon such Argument as these that it is contrary to Reason displeasing to God destructive to Soul and Body in rendring Both obnoxious to the Divine Wrath and Vengeance and that Eternity of Misery which the present fleeting Pleasures of Wickedness are a very poor and silly Exchange for Again Will not his Advance in Vertue be found to owe it self to the Contemplation of the Beauty the Reasonableness the Advantages of Holiness the Alluring Rewards it proposes the Happiness it secures in this Life and the next How then did These Arguments prevail at last Was it not by frequent Meditation by insinuating themselves into the Mind by degrees by the common Methods of Reading or Hearing and weighing God's word by vanquishing the prejudices of our corrupt Hearts by discussing and displaying the Evidence of Truth by faithful and honest Application by exciting good desires strengthening those Desires with Holy Resolutions and making good these Resolutions by diligent Endeavours and stedfast Perseverance But still the Finger of God is in all This. It is He that brings these Considerations into our hearts at first He that fastens them upon us when they are there He that adds new Life and Vigour to our Desires and Intentions and gives Efficacy and Success to our otherwise Weak and imperfect Attempts He convinces our Judgments kindles good Inclinations persuades allures threatens deterrs terrifies reproaches comforts commends and performs all other Offices necessary to Piety But these he performs in us and with us and by us From Him as we acknowledge in our daily Prayers all holy desires all good counsels and all just works proceed But they proceed from Him in such a manner as still to be our desires our counsels and our works We know we cannot come to Christ exceept the Father draw us and therefore we are sure that as many as come are drawn But then they are drawn by the Cords of a Man invited and wrought upon by the dictates of Reason by the Instructions and Exhortations of God's Word by the Admonitions and Checks of their own Consciences In a manner suitable to their Rational Nature and Faculties in a way that requires their own Cooperation and Consent and the more Men work the more God will work with them In a word the Spirit acts in the Nature of an Assistant against our Infirmities but not as an Undertaker of the Work or a Bearer of the whole Burden And all he does is by Infusions so gentle so sweet so secret so tender as to fall in with our own thoughts And if Scripture had not declared all the Good we do to be from God we could not many times distinguish between the Motions of His Spirit and those of Our own That thus it is both Reason
and Experience and which is most of all Revelation abundantly inform us Hence men are said to be * John XVII 17. Ephes V. 26. sanctified by the Word of God and by the Washing of Water and to be ‖ Rom XV. 16. sanctified by the Holy Ghost Why Because the Spirit of God is the Author and Finisher and the Word and Sacraments are the Means and Instruments of our Sanctification †1 Pet. I. 3. God is said to beget men to a Spiritual Life and the * 1 Cor. IV. 15. Ministers of the Gospel are said to beget them also And very properly both for We apply Arguments and God renders them effectual Our People attend to those Arguments and God gives them the power of Perswasion and sets them home and fixes them upon their minds and thus conveys to them a Principle of Spiritual Life by the Mediation of Our Ministry God promises to give Sinners †Ezek. XVIII 31. a new heart and be commands Sinners to make themselves a ‖ Ezek. XXXVI 25. new heart And what can any reasonable Reader gather from this but that the Renewing of our Souls is wrought by the Concurrence of Almighty God with our own Endeavours St. Paul declares himself * 1 Cor. XV. 10. laboured more abundantly than all the Apostles and yet declares in the same Breath that it was not He but the Grace of God which was with him The plain and natural Consequence whereof is that the Labour was His but the Power and the Glory and the Success of it God's The same Apostle exhorts the Philippians * Phil. II. 12 13. to work out their own Salvation because it is God that worketh in them both to will and to do of his good Pleasure And wherein lies the force and fitness of that Motive except in This that Something We must do or God will do Nothing but that All We can do will signify Nothing except God came in to our Assistance and do Something too The Point before us may be farther confirmed by the various Constructions of the word Spirit in the New Testament Which is sometimes opposed to the Flesh sometimes to the Letter and the Law Sometimes it signifies the outward Ministration of the Gospel Sometimes the inward Perswasions of Grace in our Hearts And the best Inference I know of from this Ambiguity of Expression is that leading a Life of Reason and Purity in Opposition to our Brutish and Carnal Lusts living a Life of Faith in Opposition to the Law of Ceremonies and Considence in our own Works governing our selves by the written Word of God and observing the directions and good motions of the Spirit of God within us mean and come all to the same thing at last that He who does the One does the Other also and Walking in the Spirit and living after the Spirit in clude them all in which soever of these Senses you interpret it Now these are Matters in which when we are excited to them nothing farther is discernible by Us than the Resolutions and the Probity of our own minds but from comparing these Texts it manifestly appears that God is all the while behind the Curtain and works strongly though he work unseen And Methinks it ought by no means to seem an incredible thing that He who made our Minds and stamped his own Image upon them should be so intimate with these Minds of Ours as to communicate whatever Insluences he sees sit without being necessitated to make use of our Bodily Organs or any such gross Means as must fall under the notice of our Senses We know our own Soul moves us and yet we do not feel it by any Impulse that makes a sensible Impression upon this outward Structure Nor can we say how this Motion is conveyed from an Immaterial to the finest Corporeal Substance How That commands so powerfully and every part of This obeys so readily Surely then He who created Soul and Body both and found a way to move Matter by that which is not Matter cannot want Methods of making His Spirit correspond with Ours the Spirit creating with that created by it no nor of carrying on this Correspondence in so easy and familiar a manner that We our selves when blown upon from above shall not be able to discern distinctly whence this Wind cometh and whither it goeth I will just mention some Inferences which seem undeniably to follow from the former Arguments and so conclude 1. And First This shews the Error of those men who require it as a mark of Grace to assign the Instant of ones own Conversion For in so doing they suppose several things which contradict what hath been delivered and cannot as I presume stand with our Saviour's meaning in the Text. They must suppose That the work of Conversion was wrought in an Instant That the manner of effecting it was by strong and sensible Impressions such as the Party must needs be conscious of That it was a Violent as well as a sudden Change And thus they raise this Wind up into a Hurricane that shall carry men forcibly from a State of Sin to a State of Grace They make it a motion in which men are purely passive for all this is implied in the Blowing of such a Wind as men will not content themselves with the Sound of to be satisfied of its Truth but require an account whence it cometh and whither it goeth And lastly they stretch this Metaphor of a Second Birth too far and make that signify the Manner of the Operation which is only intended to import the Greatness of the Change Secondly What went before deserves to be well considered because if it were so it would make men very caresul not to resist any of the good Motions nor go against the Sense and Chidings of their own Breasts Quenching and Grieving and Resisting and Doing Despight to the Spirit of God are what most People seem to have a great Dread and Abhorrence of but the misfortune is that they often commit these Crimes without being aware that they do so Should God in a Clap of Thunder bid the Sinner hold his hand it is probable the sturdiest of them all would not dare to proceed in a wicked Act Should he strike every man to the Ground with such a dazzling Light as he did St. Paul They would it is to be hoped presently ask with Him Lord what wilt thou have one to do But as it is They see no visible Tokens of the Divinity and therefore they regard not his Calls Now God by the Manifestation of himself to Elijah shewed that He was in the Still small voice though not in the strong Wind nor the Earthquake nor the Fire And if his Spirit mingle it self with our Thoughts If as hath been said it act upon us by the outward Ministry of the Word by the inward Dictates and Reasonings of our minds If the Effects only of his working be visible but the Manner
that no leisure can be found for the Concerns of Eternity Shall sinful Delights nay shall important Affairs draw you off What is this but to indulge your Bodies or to feed your Families while something nearer to you than both these is suffered to lye and perish for Hunger without any seeming Concern But farther yet Remember who it is that invites you Your Father your Friend your King your God And is there no respect due to these Characters It is your Christ that calls he who hungered and thirsted and wept and bled and dy'd for you He calls you to that health and happiness which you could never have had unless he had in mercy condescended to do and suffer all this for you He earnestly intreats you in this Sacrament to accept the pledges of his future and the tokens of his past Love to strengthen your Faith in the One by these lively remembrances of the Other And not refuse to be found by one who hath taken so much pains to seek and to save you when you were lost How can you then so rudely so unworthily absent your selves How unpardonable is this Coldness this Refusal this Contempt of so great a Mystery and your own Mercy Is this a suitable return for so much Kindness And would you forgive your selves for using any Patron upon Earth so ungratefully But you want no inclination if Business and troublesome Engagements would permit you to come Alas vain Man Your Fields and Yoke of Oxen the following your Employment and providing for your Children will not discharge you from attending here If these things ought to be done yet the other ought least of all to be left undone Nor hath God so ordered the matter but that Both may very well be done and each in their due place will be highly acceptable to him But if our necessities were truly considered this is the much more necessary For hither we come to find Cure for our Sins Food for our inward Strength Comfort for our Sorrows a Sanctified use of our Enjoyments a Blessing upon our honest Labours and which is more worth than all the rest a Fore-tast of Heavenly Bliss in peace of Conscience pure Devotion and an intimate Union with our dear Redeemer These are the Benefits of worthy Communicating and They who will consent to be thus happy here shall by these means be happy for ever hereafter Do not then turn the deaf Ear to so kind so advantagious offers nor let Gods empty Tables any more reproach you Defraud not thus your Souls whose dangerous Sickness is want of Appetite to this Spiritual Food And that Inappetence is caused by too long abstinence Frequent and devour approaches will quicken your desires will heal your distempers will refresh all your Languishings And believe me it highly concerns you to make up for past neglects while you have time For fear these precious opportunities rise up in Judgment and draw on that Sentence of my Text That They who will not taste this Supper here shall not be suffered to partake in Heaven of That which this represents even the Glorious Presence of the King of Saints the Company of Angels and Blessed Spirits the everlasting Festival of the Faithful and the Marriage Supper of the Lamb of God Which Condemnation God give us all Grace to escape for the sake of that Lamb the blessed Holy Jesus who takes away the sin of the World and to whom with God the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory for ever Amen SERMON XII THE CASE OF A Weak and Imperfect FAITH St. Mark IX 24. Latter part Lord I believe help thou my Vnbelief WHILE our Saviour was discovering his Glory to some of the Disciples in his Transfiguration on the Mount a Person in grief for his Son who was grievously vexed with a Devil brings him to the remainder of those Disciples left behind to have the evil Spirit dispossest Providence in great Wisdom had so ordered the matter that They were not able to effect this Cure which gave occasion to the Scribes to attack them And in the Heat of that Dispute our Saviour returns * Vers 1. to 14. to inquire into the Cause of their Controversy †Ver. 16. and is answered by the Party concerned that he had made Tryal of the Disciples in Vain which gave him some distrust of their Master too For so it is manifest it had by that doubtful form in which he begs his assistance V. 22. But if thou canst do any thing have compassion on us and help us Our Saviour hereupon gives him to understand that even the Power of working Miracles was under some confinements and not to be exerted except in favour of such Persons as met it with a ready Faith But where it found Men duly qualify'd nothing was or should be wanting on God's part Jesus said unto him If thou canst believe all things are possible to him that believeth V. 23. The Father of the Child full of concern for his Son sadly sensible of his own Defects and desirous of greater perfection replies with a very moving earnestness and an over-flowing of Tears Lord I believe help thou my unbelief This manner of Address plainly speaks the State of the Man's Mind and shews he wanted a full and absolute perswasion and such an entire confidence in the Power and Goodness of Christ as he wished and ought to have had Nay such as we find several instances of in the History of our Saviour's Life and Actions But though he had not all Faith yet it seems he had Enough for his purpose He did not come up to the highest and foremost Rank but he was accepted and thought worthy of Compassion though not of Commendation Accordingly the following Verses declare the success of this imperfect condition of Soul for our Lord commanded the dumb and deaf Spirit and wrought the Cure though with some pain and difficulty to the Patient A difficulty which seems to have born proportion to the Father's Faith * Ver. 26. For the Spirit cried and rent him sore and he was as one dead But however the Command was too mighty to be disobey'd for the Spirit came out of him and as St. Matthew adds in his relation of this Passage the Child was cured from that very Hour My design from hence is to apply this instance at large by enquiring into the nature of a Weak and Imperfect Faith and that chiefly for these two Reasons First For the Humiliation of those who imagine themselves more perfect than really they are And Secondly for the Comfort of Them who are in reality Better men than they imagine themselves to be And I do not doubt before I have done but to convince the most exalted Christian that though he may truly say with this person in my Text Lord I believe yet there is need enough still of joyning in the latter part of the Verse and of praying as he did Lord help my Vnbelief And
obliged to and may arrive at a competent Degree of yet All will not find it equally easy to practice them But Those Persons will attain to the highest Perfections in these Virtues and exercise them with less Difficulty and a more sensible Delight whom their own natural Complexions have most disposed toward Each of them For Every one hath not the same Proneness in himself to fear or to love to trust or to despond to be good-natured or to be sordid And therefore As the Work must needs be double where Nature must be opposed and over-ruled so no doubt it is half done to our hands where we are already possest with these happy Tendencies when Inclination goes before and directs us in our way to Duty Now what Nature does once for all in forming our Constitutions at first The Accidents of this Life the Distempers of our Bodies and a thousand other Occasional Things do for a time with us That is They give a present turn to our minds and while these Impressions last upon us inspire our Souls with stronger inclinations and aversions than usual and dispose or indispose us more than in our selves and according to our general Temper we are wont to be toward them The Soberest and most Considerate Person cannot always preserve such an Evenness of Spirit that no Provocation no sudden Gusts of Anger or Grief or some other Passion should not sometimes render his Thoughts tumultuous and disorderly Those that seek the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness first yet must allow some part of their time and pains in an honest search of the less important Conveniencies of this Life And Business and Care though they be so well guarded as not to dissettle yet they will in some measure divert the mind from the One thing necessary A Man thus incumbred cannot return from the World to God all on the sudden with the same fixed and sedate Composure of Mind as if no other thoughts had mingled themselves with his Religious ones But especially The Soul and Body are linked together in so close a band their operations upon one another reciprocally are so very quick and powerful that it is scarce to be conceived how strangely they labour under one anothers infirmities And how great and speedy a change the Soul and all its affections feel by every little Alteration that happens to the Body How the Mind exults and enlarges it self when This is in good health and temper and again how it languishes and is cramped up under every indisposition every accidental disturbance that shakes the fleshly Tabernacle in which it dwells How Age and Sickness do not only waste our Strength and wither our Limbs but enervate our Minds too enfeeble all their Operations and as it were disjoynt all their Powers How mighty a stroke all these things carry and what Changes they make in us Every one who does at all consider and look into himself will quickly find None of us is able at all times alike to maintain the same Easiness of Humour and Freedom in common Conversation None is always equally qualified to think or bend his mind to business but even our Understandings have their Lucid and their Clouded intervals And if That part of our Mind which hath least of all to do with the Body be yet affected with the several Habits of it How much more must those Others the Will and the Desires be subject to them whose business lies chiefly with those Appetites and Inclinations which Flesh and Sense converse with and are moved by How strongly must These determine us in Acts of Piety and Devotion particularly and Inspire Warmth or chill us with Cold when those Affections are the very part chiefly employed All which is the more necessary to be observed that Men may be set right in their judgments of themselves and not rashly pronounce as they frequently do concerning the State of their Souls and the hopes of Eternal Salvation from such things as are not of a Spiritual Relation but proceed merely from Natural and Necessary Causes For Thus in effect it is that the Incomes and Desertions which Some people affect to talk of so much and lay such mighty stress upon are neither the Graces nor the Defects of their mind so much as the present Habit of the Blood and Spirits and the particular Temper and Constitution of their Bodies III. The Next Objection seems to carry much more reason of Dissatisfaction which is when Men apprehend that they are not sufficiently sorry for their past Sins For This is a most necessary Duty and He that does not sorrow enough does it to very little purpose But here again the whole Difficulty lies in determining what is Enough The misfortune of Persons in their Doubts concerning Remorse for sin is that they mistake the Nature of Sorrow upon these Occasions It is supposed by many that this Sorrow does of it self recommend us to God and is for its own sake exceeding acceptable to him That herein chiefly consists the Repentance of a Sinner As appears they tell you from the mournful Complaints of David the bitter Weeping of St. Peter and Other instances of Holy Penitents in Scripture All which are our Patterns and when we fall short of Their Anguish and Grief of Heart it is to be feared that we want Their Faith and Their Sincerity And therefore it is urged that no Man's Soul ought to speak comfort to him without the like Humiliations the like inward perplexities and groanings of Spirit the like watering our Couch with Tears and making our Bed to swim in the Night-Season Now all this is owing as I said to a wrong apprehension of this Godly Sorrow and not distinguishing between the End it is to promote and the Sorrow it self which is but as the Mean and Way to that End St. Paul hath taught us * 2 Cor. VII 10. that this worketh repentance not to be repented of But that which worketh Repentance is plainly a part or an Instrument or a Cause of it only but cannot be the Whole nor the Perfection of the thing it works Repentance is the Change of Heart and Life the coming to a better Sense and acting more wisely for the time to come Where this is done effectually God accepts the Person let the degree of Sorrow that brought him to it have been what it will And where this is not done no proportion of Sorrow is pleasing in his sight Our Good is the thing he desires He delights in the change of our Manners and the correcting of our Wills and no Affliction or Sadness of Heart can give pleasure to a Being so infinitely Kind as God who is Love and Goodness in its utmost Perfection any farther than those Dejections of mind contribute to our substantial Holiness and thorough Reformation It is highly expedient indeed that we should be most heartily concerned for having done amiss because what we are truly sorry for we shall not easily be induced to